Plainest Stakes
by Sesamina
Summary: Kate stays over at Daniel's place and can't find any sleep.


A/N: For Kels. Because of reasons.

**Plainest Stakes**

She opened her eyes in the quiet darkness of the room. Again. Looking around she could make out shapes and shadows, the chair she put her clothes on before she had gone to bed hours ago. Not her bed but still a very comfortable one. She puffed out a breath of frustrated air and kicked her legs under the sheets to find a position relaxing enough to fall right into slumber. But apparently this wasn't going to happen.

Great.

She hated when that happened. There was absolutely no way she was going to get some sleep tonight. All she did was rolling around in the unfamiliar bed, tossing and turning. Closing her eyes in surrender for a short moment before she decided what the heck, might as well stay awake. She's got her laptop with her and a million books at her disposal.

No sleep at all like this meant she would probably be a little grumpy around noon. And that meant this would be a coffee day. With lots of coffee. God, she hoped he had coffee. Or maybe Max did?

It's always the same thing every time when she spent the first night in a different bed apart from her own. It didn't even matter if she's in an unfamiliar hotel room or over at her best friend Emma's place where she had already spent so many late girls nights with wine and the occasional chick flick or even at her parent's house in her old room.

Joy.

Ugh. Well, as long as she's up anyway she could as well take a trip to the bathroom.

Hopping out of the bed – a pretty comfortable one actually – she regretted it instantly when her bare feet hit the cold wooden floor. Old dark parquet wood was amazing but not at two in the morning on naked skin. Okay, that meant fast to the bathroom and even faster back to bed. She grabbed the hem of the shirt she had slept in and pulled it down over her butt. Not that she expected anyone to be up at this ungodly hour but you never knew and the shirt didn't cover all that much. And she refused to sleep in underwear she wore all day. Well, she refused to sleep in underwear, period.

But with her luck Daniel would open his bedroom door at exactly the most inopportune time and catch a glance at her stark naked ass right there on her way to the bathroom.

She opened the door slowly and stuck her head out of the guest bedroom in Daniel's house, glancing left and right into the dark that was enveloping the hallway. Nope, looked clear. No creaking of old wood under feet, no fridge door opening for a midnight snack, no light at all.

Slowly and on the tip of her toes she made her way along the corridor, the fingers of one hand tracing the wall, while the other one held her shirt in place. She hoped she didn't trip over something in the darkness.

"Kate?"

The woman stopped dead in her tracks, body rigid, eyes wide open. No. Nononono. Hesitating for a few seconds she clamped both her hands on the material trying to frantically cover her front and back at the same time as much as possible before turning towards the voice, looking anywhere but at him. Heat crept up her spine and manifested on her face. Thank god, he couldn't see it.

"What are you doing up?"

She couldn't see much in the dark but...was he smirking? She was pretty sure she could hear it in the way he voiced his question.

If she hadn't been totally embarrassed right now and half naked she would have wiped that grin right off his face. Even though he had a really cute grin.

"I...couldn't sleep. And I have to pee." This was getting awkward really fast and she couldn't think of something else fast enough so she told the truth. Her head made little movements towards the bathroom door indicating what she was about to do although he probably couldn't see anything either. Then she recovered. "I could ask you the same question."

"Ah."

She could still hear the smirk. How much _did_ he see?

She thought she was free to leave now and started turning around very slowly to finally escape to the bathroom and hide there forever. Or at least until she was sure he had gone back to his room.

The moment she thought she was safe because she managed to get the bathroom door open without revealing too much of her skin...well, more skin... Daniel started talking again.

"Do you even own pants?"

She groaned, her right hand clutched the handle so hard that her knuckles went white. Two seconds later she was in the bathroom leaning back against the door, eyes closed and the lights out. Not moving a breathed in deeply and let the air back out so very slowly, heat radiating up and down her whole body.

Well, that went great.


End file.
